Earthbound — Em Frank

EARTHBOUND

2024

ATELIER ANTIFRAGILE
Adelaide

While living in the Central Desert I developed a bowerbird-like proclivity for collecting wayward metal objects from the ground.

These treasures, now permanently scattered around my studio, have entered a dialogue with the materials and forms I have been exploring in ceramics.

Iron seems to draw a material line through my practice. From my use of iron saturated glazes and iron oxide etching techniques, to my obsession with discarded metal objects and the iron rich earth of the places I’ve lived and worked.

This work is a moment in a longer process of experimentation and play. A love note to the car graveyards of the Central Desert, where dirt and iron converge, forming sculptural assemblages that obscure the point at which earth ends and metal begins.

Materials - stoneware, glaze, iron oxide, found metal

The Jam Factory

Photos 1-3 by Connor Patterson

Living and labouring on Kaurna Yarta

@em___frank